Stella Zinman
Dr. Stella Zinman is Ted Mosby's romantic interest in most of Season 3. She gets engaged to him in the premiere of Season 4, but leaves him just before the wedding for her ex-boyfriend, karate instructor Tony Grafanello. Early Life Stella started dating Tony Grafanello in High School, and has been in love since. They broke up after their daughter Lucy was born because she wanted to focus on being a good mother. She went to college and onto Medical School. She eventually got a job at a Tattoo Removal Clinic in New York City. She has said she was on the PTA and the Deputy Mayor in New Jersey. Relationship with Ted Season 3 Her first encounter with Ted occurs in the professional manner as his dermatologist in , where Ted consults her to remove his butterfly lower-back tattoo. During his first session, the two agree to go out for a movie, but Ted mistakes this invitation for a date and ends up accompanying Stella on girls' night out, and she explains to him how there are regulations forbidding her to date patients. However, when Ted works around this by forewarning her that he'll ask her out once the sessions are over, she gives him fair warning that she will refuse. The sessions end, and Ted asks her out, to which Stella replies that she has a daughter, Lucy. However, this does not throw Ted off course, because she doesn't explicitly refuse (and he gets to learn that Marshall heard Stella describe Ted as a "small crush"), so he takes her on a two-minute date during her lunch-break. The two have a good time and they kiss. The relationship kicks off and the two seem happy with each other, although Ted gets the feeling that Stella might be taking things too slow ( ), since she has neither slept with him nor introduced him to her daughter. (By the end of the episode, she ends up doing both things). Paradoxically, in the finale, Ted freaks out when she asks him to accompany her to her sister Nora's wedding in six months, and breaks up with her, ignorant of the fact that she did not get the intention of his words. After Ted gets in a car accident, she visits him in the hospital and makes out with him on his bed. But when Lily accidentally reveals to Stella that he intended to break up with her earlier that day, she confronts him and dumps him. Ted doesn't give her up and once discharged, finds her at Kiddie Fun Land, where he proposes to her. The Season 4 premiere opens with her accepting his proposal. Season 4 Soon after the proposal, however, Marshall helps Ted realize how little he knows his wife-to-be, and he has her watching a Star Wars movie with him. Stella admits to Marshall, however, that she hated the film, but is ready to pretend to love it for the rest of her life for Ted. Despite this, Marshall still thinks that things are moving too fast and, together with the rest of the group, decides to hold an intervention for Ted about Stella. The intervention never took place, but Marshall still expresses his concerns to his best friend, although he also tells Ted that he and the group have since changed their opinion about Stella and are now happy to see the two together, even if the course of events has him moving to New Jersey (Stella refuses outright to move to New York with Ted). However, when Stella decides to take over her sister's canceled wedding on Shelter Island, things start to get out of hand. Stella freaks out that, together with her daughter Lucy, Ted invited Tony for the wedding, as well as his ex-girlfriend Robin. Ted talks Robin out of coming to the wedding, but a few hours before the ceremony, he finds a note which Stella has left him, explaining that she's getting back with her ex-boyfriend Tony (Robin actually sees them together and kissing on the ferry boat). The next day, Ted shows no signs of anger with regards to Stella and the group go to have dinner at a restaurant. Lily recounts Stella advising the place to her, and the gang are shocked to see Stella at the restaurant ordering a take-away. To avoid confrontation, they take shelter under their dining table until she leaves. After hearing the unresolved issues his friends still have with their "ghosts", Ted finally decides to confront Stella and follows her home, although he has no plans to yell in rage at her. On the way, Marshall lets slip out that Stella hated Star Wars in an unsuccessful attempt to get him angry. But when Lily points out that Stella is stopping at Tony's, Ted realizes that she has moved in with Tony despite her refusal to move in to New York with him, and his anger erupts. He plans an entire list of things to say to her, but after seeing her with Tony and Lucy as a perfect family, his anger vanishes and he just walks away. Some time later, he encounters Stella at a book stall with Tony, where he plays it cool. Although this seems to be a casual encounter, Tony visits Ted soon after because he believes that Ted was sad to see Stella with Tony and offers him several architecture jobs, which Ted refuses. (By the end of the season, Ted ends up accepting Tony's offer of becoming an architecture professor). When Tony reveals the reason behind these job offers, Ted assures him that he doesn't want Stella back, but despite this, Tony breaks up with her. Stella then visits Ted to ask him to try and talk some sense into Tony. Ted refuses to do so, but takes advantage of the help she tries to offer him to make things better when Barney calls him from a police station in New Jersey to come and get him. Stella drives him back and forth, and the two have a short conversation in her car, where she assures Ted that the "one" for him is on the way, and that she's getting to him "as fast as she can". Ted thanks her and leaves. Afterwards, Stella moves to California with Tony. In , Tony makes a movie based off of the triangle between he, Ted, and Stella. It appears to show Ted in a bad light, showing that Tony is apparently still not very kind towards Ted. Season 9 Stella reappears in Sunrise, when Ted calls her to ask about Robin's locket. She thinks that Ted is trying to ruin Robin's wedding, but she gives him permission to search the locket in her storage unit in Los Angeles. 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